Main menu

Sign up for our newsletter

Dreaming is Heavy Metal

September 26, 2018

When in Norway, skip the Viking museum and go straight to Helvete––the record shop that houses a shrine to the Norwegian black metal scene from the 90s and early 2000s. The store-turned-museum was photographer Grace Ahlbom’s first stop on a recent trip abroad, and the visit inspired her new zine, Dreaming is Heavy Metal––a publication that fuses found fanzine imagery and the artist’s own photographic reenactments of the Norwegian black metal fandom.

While Ahlbom wasn’t previously a fan of the genre, she became fascinated with its die-hard enthusiasts. She explored the scene as more of an interested observer rather than a pretend fan, maintaining her distance even in the photographs she took.

Painting the faces of her friends and longtime muses Lukas Ionesco and Joe Skilton in the classic black-and-white black metal style, she shot them among crowds of people near London’s most touristy spots.

“I didn’t have them dress up in anything black metal, because we’re not actually fans,” she said, “but it was fun to put the makeup on and run around.”

That lighthearted photoshoot, combined with cyanotypes she made from the zines, and lines from a manifesto she found in Helvete’s basement comprise the final product: Ahlbom’s own participation in black metal fandom.

Experimenting in the dark room, the 25-year-old artist cast photos in saturated blues and reds, blurring the line between which images are old and new. She used her iPhone to create light leaks on photos of the shop’s interior, which contains walls of artifacts untouched since the ‘80s, when it was a hangout for new bands on the scene. Throughout the developing process, Ahlbom took a labor-intensive approach––offering her own creativity to the fandom.

office spoke to the photographer about obsession between idols and fans.

How did you arrive at the title, Dreaming is Heavy Metal?

I found some zines [at Helvete] that were made in the early 2000s and one of them was a manifesto some kid wrote about how cool black metal is. Somewhere in the writing he said, ‘I can dream, can I not? Dreaming is heavy metal.’ With each image there’s also a title and every single title is plucked from the manifesto.

What took you to Norway?

I’m Norwegian and Swedish, so I was just there visiting family friends. I knew the black metal scene was kind of big in Norway, or at least it started there. Since I’m Norwegian, I was trying to find something I’d be more interested in than, like, going to the viking museum, or something you’re supposed to look at. So yeah, I just went to this black metal museum and my parents went to the viking museum.

Were you following black metal before your trip?

I don’t really listen to black metal, but I don’t think that’s the point. It’s more just about the fan culture and the overall––the props, the makeup, the whole theatrical performance behind it is what I’m interested in.

What’s appealing to you about getting immersed in a subculture that you aren’t naturally drawn to as a participant?

The whole fandom thing is what I’m interested in, in any subculture. But especially music. I went to Kurt Cobain’s bench in Seattle and all these kids were still standing around it, and these people just make shrines. It’s the following––how people go all out for these bands. If I went to one of these concerts, I’d rather be taking photos of all the fans looking towards the performer because they’re just so transfixed. They have the whole outfits on, they’re almost like a doppelganger––they look the exact same, they know everything about everything.

Have you come across any other fandoms or shrines?

I try to find these weird, niche things. I was in Spain and this crazy guy in Madrid started this Ramones bar––they only play The Ramones. The owner kind of looks like one of them, and I guess his story is that The Ramones once went into that bar for a drink, and now it’s the Ramones bar, forever. That’s one thing I stumbled into. I definitely want to just keep finding these gems.

Were there any scenes that you fanned out over growing up?

I grew up skateboarding, so I was into any of the music in skateboard videos. I loved those shows, Jackass and Viva La Bam. He always had crazy music in the show that I’d then go to Hot Topic and buy the band shirt. I’d buy all that merch. Back in those days, you’d have to go to a record store to hear music, or MTV. And the video games––I remember the Tony Hawk video games always had the best soundtrack.

Book of Love

November 21, 2018

This is not a drill.

Gucci has blessed the SoHo neighborhood with a newly opened bookstore inside their Wooster Street shop. A chic destination for print with over 2,000 titles hand-selected by former Magnum Photography curator and Dashwood Books founder David Strettell, including office, of course, the Gucci Wooster Bookstore opened its doors yesterday, and will tap into downtown NYC's nonconformist history by offering a range of contemporary and rare publications focusing on youth, fashion, photography, culture, architecture, fine art and design.

The location will also feature a selection of magazines like yours truly.

With its own dedicated entrance at 375 West Broadway, the bookstore will allow visitors to bypass the main store and walk straight into the mecca of printted matter. Your coffee table will never be the same.

Summer in Winter

November 20, 2018

An alchemist, a landscape designer and a humanist walk into a bar—the joke? They’re all the same person. Using the medium of plant life in an attempt to reconnect people with the beauty of the natural world, Visionaire tapped landscape designer Lily Kwong to create Summer In Winter, a new installation at Cadillac House in Manhattan—and this isn’t your average botanical garden.

Featuring 100 different species of plants, including rare specimens from 37 different countries across seven continents ranging from Mexico to Madagascar, Kwong’s garden offers a refreshingly wholesome take on the merging of botany, architecture and visual arts within an urban environment.

In this day in age, when the default desktop backgrounds of wet leaves and misty mountaintops on your MacBook are the only natural specimens you’re used to seeing, it’s important to have tangible spaces like Summer in Winter to interact with nature and remind us of the glory of Mama Earth every once in a while.

Extinction

In an urban environment like NYC or Paris, where staring out of the window and seeing a sky of high-rises is the norm, it’s not hard to feel out of touch with nature—but don’t worry, you’re not alone.

That’s the overwhelming sentiment in Extinction, a new exhibition at the Artemis Fontana Gallery in Paris, on view now through December 2. With work from a wide array of artists, including Edgars Gluhovs, Katarzyna Przezwanska and Gaia Vincensini, the various interactions between humans, their surrounding nature and the inevitable impending doom resulting from the long term relationship between the two, are examined and displayed through every imaginable medium, from embossed leather and painting to digital engraving and video, to name just a few.

“Everything is artificial, everything is artifice. Nature no longer exists,” reads the gallery’s press release about the show. “We always start from the contemplation of artifice. That’s why everything’s so chaotic. So false. So desperately confused.”

And while we can’t argue with that, we can use it as a rock bottom realization to begin conversations about a much needed sustainable future—or else, we will be extinct.

View some pieces from the exhibit, below.

‘Extinction’ is on view now through December 2 at Artemis Fontana Gallery in Paris.